Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 402 The Source of Livelihood Remains a Mystery
Judging from Xu Liu's personal situation, she is actually not much better off than Lu Xiaoshuang.

In some ways, she's even inferior to Lu Xiaoshuang.

Lu Xiaoshuang's biggest problem is that she has no money.

Her parents lived far away in the Northwest, on a reclaimed farm, which was even more rural than the countryside itself.

After deducting the minimum living expenses from his annual income, he sent all of it to Lu Xiaoshuang.

Junior high school is compulsory education, and there are subsidies for children of educated youth in high school, which are barely enough to cover the cost of study and living expenses. Even with such a small amount of money, one's second and third uncles would still skim off a layer of skin from them.

But this amount of money is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to going to university.

Therefore, Lu Xiaoshuang was very sensible. The day after the college entrance examination ended, she went out to find a job and worked hard to earn tuition and living expenses.

With the addition of scholarships and poverty relief, he was barely able to maintain his studies.

Aside from those few blind relatives, Lu Xiaoshuang's parents and grandmother loved her very much, but they simply didn't have the means to provide her with better living conditions.

But Xu Liu's family was clearly not like that. Although their area was a poor county, Xu Liu's family lived in a town, not in a remote mountain valley.

Since Xu Liu's parents can afford to raise three children, it at least shows that they have no problem with basic living expenses.

Xu Liu's predicament stemmed from the ignorance of her family.

When I was a child, I didn't understand, because Zhou Yisheng was born into a normal family where the parents loved their children.

Later, after becoming a policeman and witnessing the full spectrum of human nature, I realized that some parents would personally break their children's wings soaring high.

They'll even use the excuse of "it's for your own good."

Lu Xiaoshuang and Xu Liu, two people facing similar life difficulties, made different choices.

Lu Xiaoshuang chose to work part-time to earn money, facing life with a positive and optimistic attitude, while also maintaining excellent academic performance.

However, Xu Liu clearly has problems.

Given Xu Liu's situation, unless her grandmother secretly gave her a lot of money both before and after her death, her source of income would be questionable.

But even if an illiterate old lady with no retirement pension were to give her money, how much could she possibly give? Just a few coins she'd saved up from her meager savings.

If he were truly wealthy, he wouldn't have needed to use his life savings to pay for his granddaughter's college tuition.

Even though her family doesn't give her money and she doesn't work, she's never short of money for daily expenses.

The task force even went to Xu Liu's dormitory and checked all her personal belongings, finding that most of her clothes were new and some still had their tags on.

In addition, two thousand yuan in cash was found in a hidden pocket of her suitcase. After testing by the technical department, only Xu Liu's fingerprints were found on it.

Therefore, compared to Lu Xiaoshuang's self-reliance, Xu Liu is very likely to maintain his daily expenses through unethical means.

Based on this direction, the task force conducted a further in-depth investigation.

Deputy group leader Liang Wei offered a clear opinion, believing that the possibility of soliciting prostitution was relatively small, firstly because Xu Liu's identity did not quite match the characteristics of the prostitute group.

Because most prostitutes are part of an organization, and the higher the level of the organization, the more tightly controlled it is, and the greater the control it has over the prostitutes' freedom, unless they are streetwalkers.

But it's obvious that Xu Liu wouldn't be working as a prostitute.

Another factor is her proud personality. Although there is an element of inferiority in her, the self-esteem of a young person who has not yet entered society is not so easily broken.

Therefore, the investigation should focus on her social relationships, with a particular emphasis on married middle-aged men with relatively good economic conditions.

Liang Wei's opinion was very accurate, and Zhou Yi admired it. The label of "married middle-aged man" was not surprising.

Surprisingly, Liang Wei used the phrase "relatively good" to describe his economic conditions, which is quite interesting.

Under normal circumstances, they would definitely prioritize targeting wealthy people, business people, and bosses. These middle-aged men have a particular fondness for beautiful female college students.

Moreover, these people are mostly married, having been married to wives who had shared hardships before they became wealthy, so they tend to be more cautious in their interactions.

However, Liang Wei used the phrase "relatively good." At first, Zhou Yi didn't understand why, but after seeing the inventory list of Xu Liu's personal belongings, he suddenly realized why.

The major crime experts at the brigade certainly have sharp eyes!
Although Xu Liu's personal items are all brand-name goods, they are of relatively high quality and cost-effectiveness, rather than the kind that are flashy but impractical.

In particular, in Zhou Yi's eyes, who has seen the world, these brands will be brands that ordinary people can afford many years later.

If these items were not bought by Xu Liu herself, but were given to her or purchased by the man, it indicates that the man is mindful of value for money in his spending habits and has effectively controlled his spending, avoiding expensive luxury items.

That's why they are relatively wealthy.

People who can afford to spend money but care about getting their money's worth can only be considered relatively wealthy.

This also broadened the investigative approach, without setting limitations on the investigation, otherwise it would be easy to be misled, since investigating a case is something that cannot be taken lightly.

The task force believes that this man is highly likely to have committed the crime, because such immoral relationships between men and women can easily lead to death, and there are many cases to prove it.

But Zhou Yi felt something was off. The clue about Xu Liu's lover was indeed new to him in his previous life.

But the deceased in the previous life was Lu Xiaoshuang. Could it be that Xu Liu's lover is inside Hongda? Otherwise, how could he be related to Lu Xiaoshuang?
The problem is that Xu Liu started disguising herself on her first day of university. She's not a local from Hongcheng, so how could she have gotten involved with people on campus before starting university?
Normally, unless they have connections at home, ordinary college students don't even know who their counselor is before entering the university. But Zhou Yi wouldn't interfere with this direction of the investigation, because the task force's investigation was meant to be as comprehensive as possible, and this lead did indeed have some suspicious points.

However, Xu Liu concealed this matter quite well.

None of her classmates had mentioned it or noticed anything amiss, and no male students on campus seemed to be close to her.

Therefore, the task force had no choice but to expand the scope of the investigation.

First, we need to interview a large number of people in the surrounding area to see if there are any eyewitnesses who remember Xu Liu.

Secondly, the investigation focused on Xu Liu's social relationships during high school and her whereabouts during the summer before she went to university, because Xu Liu's parents said that she had worked in Huaixing City for a while last summer.

As for the specific address and situation, her parents knew nothing, only that she worked as a waitress.

However, both of these research directions are time-consuming and labor-intensive.

So there's been no progress yet.

……

The second part of the meeting's information was about Lu Xiaoshuang.

Although Lu Xiaoshuang is currently being held as a criminal suspect, the task force has not disclosed this information to the public.

This was mainly for the sake of the case's confidentiality, and because Lu Xiaoshuang did indeed discover many logically inconsistent points during her investigation.

Therefore, in the eyes of the faculty and students of the Department of Financial Management, Xu Liu clearly knows that she has been murdered, while Lu Xiaoshuang is missing.

Lu Xiaoshuang was last seen at 12:40 pm on April 30th. Her figure was captured on the surveillance camera at the school gate. At that time, she was carrying her old schoolbag that she had been using since high school.

However, the surveillance footage was too low in resolution to make out facial expressions and details.

After that, all the surveillance footage before the school gates were closed that night was checked, and no further instances of Lu Xiaoshuang returning to school were found. Of course, the possibility of her entering through the side gate or the back gate cannot be ruled out.

Liang Wei instructed Chen Yao to perform technical processing on the surveillance footage from noon on the 30th to improve its clarity and then search for suspicious targets within it.

No findings have been made yet.

Although Lu Xiaoshuang was identified as a suspect, as the investigation unfolded, more and more inexplicable issues arose.

First, there's the motive for the crime.

It is true that Lu Xiaoshuang and Xu Liu had a conflict, and there are many witnesses to this.

However, their roommates also testified that Lu Xiaoshuang and Xu Liu had never had any friction or arguments before, nor had they expressed any dissatisfaction with each other to anyone.

The only two arguments took place on April 14th and 15th.

Mo Youyou also proved that although Lu Xiaoshuang was angry about her sweater being cut, her main emotion was that she didn't understand what she had done to offend Xu Liu and felt that this person was very strange.

Therefore, based on the comprehensive investigation, the conflict between Xu and Lu was not a long-standing grudge, and it is highly unlikely that this conflict would turn into a criminal motive for murder and dismemberment.

Unless Lu Xiaoshuang has a mental illness and can't handle stimulation.

However, the investigation team concluded that this was not the case.

A professional psychologist will be arranged to conduct a psychological evaluation of Lu Xiaoshuang to confirm this.

Next is the alibi.

Xu Liu disappeared on the evening of April 28th. After leaving the girls' dormitory, her whereabouts became unknown.

At that time, Lu Xiaoshuang was in the girls' dormitory building, and everyone can testify to that.

In other words, Lu Xiaoshuang did not have the time to commit the crime of kidnapping Xu Liu.

Of course, given her height and build, Lu Xiaoshuang wouldn't have the ability to quickly subdue Xu Liu unless she used drugs.

However, drugs that can cause unconsciousness are all controlled substances, and she, as an ordinary girl, simply did not have the ability to obtain them.

On the night of the 28th, Lu Xiaoshuang did not leave her dormitory. From the 29th to noon on the 30th, she was also at school, only appearing in three places: her dormitory, classroom, and cafeteria. There were also many witnesses.

So after this investigation, it's clear to anyone, even a fool, that Lu Xiaoshuang is more like another victim than the suspect.

However, there were dissenting voices within the task force. Although it wasn't revealed at the meeting who proposed it, Zhou Yi suspected it was Ni Jianrong.

The objection is that it cannot be ruled out that Lu Xiaoshuang conspired with others to murder Xu Liu, and then during the disposal of the body, disagreements or conflicts arose among the murderers, leading to Lu Xiaoshuang being dumped in the mine.

Therefore, the focus of the investigation should be on men who have close relationships with Lu Xiaoshuang.

From Zhou Yi's perspective, this speculation is utter nonsense.

However, from the perspective of handling cases, if there is no evidence or clues to rule out this possibility, then we must investigate.

Therefore, Zhou Yi had a sufficient alibi when he went to Anyuan on a business trip, which, from some perspectives, cleared him of suspicion.

(End of this chapter)